George Mason (1725-1792) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America. He was an influential member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and the Virginia Convention. He was a Virginia tobacco planter who grew wealthy using slave labor. Mason wrote both the Virginia Declaration of Rights in 1776 and the Virginia state constitution, but he is best known for his refusal to sign the Constitution. The most important reason that Mason did not sign was the lack of a bill of rights. Mason wrote the first document ever written about the U.S. Constitution; he used a printed draft of the Constitution and wrote his Objections on the reverse. His opposition played a large role in the addition of the Bill of Rights (the first ten constitutional amendments) in 1791. He did not hold major office after 1787.

Contents

Career

Anne Eilbeck Mason, his first wife and mother of all of their children.

Mason inherited more than 15,000 acres of land in Virginia and Maryland including 5,500 at Gunston Hall. Like many Virginia planters, Mason was constantly increasing his holdings. By the time of his death in 1792, he owned more than 75,000 acres. He served as a town trustee of Alexandria, Virginia, and as a vestryman of the local Anglican church. Mason was the second largest slave holder in Fairfax County after George Washington. Washington held approximately 300 slaves at Mount Vernon, Mason probably had about 100 slaves. Unlike his friend George Washington, Mason never freed the slaves he owned instead willing them to his nine children.

That all men are by nature equally free and independent, and have certain inherent rights, of which, when they enter into a state of society, they cannot, by any compact, deprive or divest their posterity; namely, the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the means of acquiring and possessing property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety.

Jefferson rewrote it:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Constitution

In 1787 Mason was a very active participant at the Constitutional Convention. Mason was suspicious of centralized power, and he argued for limitations on such powers throughout the federal convention. Yet, he was also an effective nationalist and supported the Virginia Plan's third resolution, which called for a national government with "supreme" departments. He defended the popular election of the House and favored the direct election of the Senate. Mason advocated age restrictions on government service, offering a motion that set the minimum age requirement for election to the House after others had moved that there be no age restrictions of House members. He also helped broker the "Great Compromise," which broke a major barrier that had threatened to break up the Convention; his compromise converted the small states into enthusiastic supporters of national power.

However Mason finally refused to sign the document and spoke out in 1787 and 1788 against it because it lacked a Bill of Rights. To secure adoption in Virginia James Madison compromised and made the campaign promise to propose amendments, and the Bill of Rights was adopted in 1791. Mason was a close friend of George Washington until the 1787 Convention. After 1787, he and George Washington were no longer friends. Like his friends Patrick Henry and Richard Henry Lee, Mason was an anti-Federalist.

George Mason University, a state university in Virginia, is named for him. His home, Gunston Hall, is open to the public all year, except Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Day.

Quotes

"To disarm the people; that it was the best and most effectual way to enslave them." [2]